


coming home

by xiajin



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Demisexuality, Fake Science, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Slow Burn, Spider-Man!au, Superheroes, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiajin/pseuds/xiajin
Summary: jinyoung wants to know where andwhenhe agreed to being the love interest to the local arachnid superhero, since as far as he knows, hedidn’tandholy fucking shit why is he in the air -
Relationships: Choi Youngjae & Im Jaebum | JB, Choi Youngjae/Jackson Wang, Choi Youngjae/Mark Tuan, Choi Youngjae/Mark Tuan/Jackson Wang, Im Jaebum | JB & Jackson Wang, Im Jaebum | JB & Park Jinyoung, Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung, Kim Yugyeom & Park Jinyoung, Kunpimook Bhuwakul | BamBam & Park Jinyoung, Kunpimook Bhuwakul | BamBam/Kim Yugyeom, Mark Tuan/Jackson Wang
Comments: 18
Kudos: 88





	coming home

**Author's Note:**

> the title references two things. "coming home" by jj project, verse 2, and spider-man: homecoming. hehe. i thought i was being really clever. 
> 
> this was born out of a little plot nugget that i got when talking to ahra, who mentioned that she can't believe jaebeom's piercings never got caught on anything, because god knows her own face piercings got stuck on so much fabric. what if he wore a mask made of spandex? to which i asked: why in the world would he wear a mask made of spandex for??? and ahra went: idk, what if he was like spiderman or something. you never know??? 
> 
> and then that devolved into this. tbh i don't really know what it is, but i loved most iterations of spiderman (and comics) growing up, so then i just _couldn't stop writing it_. i took a lot of inspiration from numerous spiderman movies (toby's, andrew's, and tom holland's) as well as the comics and kinda got some weird amalgamation. there are different aspects of purely fanon content, too, but that'll all come in time. i have a very general idea of where the plot wants to go but like... can we even get there.... lets see if we can make out of this one alive without too many plot holes. i'll be back to edit this later sldjaks. 
> 
> stuff about living in nyc comes from my own experience + friends + media. i'm super sorry if i dont do the korean nyc community justice. ;-;
> 
> also, i make a lot of references to iconic quotes from the spiderman franchise. see if you can spot them! i'll aim to do one per chapter? :D

jinyoung cracks down on the coffee in the morning, watching it drip through his filter with blank eyes. he realizes, a bit too late, that his fingers are pressed against the side of his electric kettle and that it’s _hot_. and the relay from his fingers to his brain is running two seconds late, so when he pulls away with a soft curse, his fingers are already reddening.

“ah,” he sighs to himself and holds his fingers underneath cold water for a couple of seconds. he wants to hiss the way he imagines the thin skin of his fingers must, but he doesn’t. he wipes his hands on a spare tea towel embroidered with lovely birds and takes his coffee mug from the break room back to his desk.

“hyung,” yugyeom says as he settles into his own space, “where did you go?”

jinyoung holds up his mug as a form of explanation, but from the way yugyeom looks at him, jinyoung supposes that he meant something else. for the other meaning of his question, jinyoung can’t readily answer him, so he doesn’t answer him at all.

“where is bambam?” he looks around for said person, who is usually hanging around their snack cabinet sneakily, but jinyoung can’t seem to catch a glimpse of bambam’s silver hair.

“probably flirting with one of the mechanical geeks a wing over,” yugyeom grumbles. now, jinyoung would usually ignore most of yugyeom’s grumbles, but there is a strange edge to yugyeom’s words that speak of a long-held bitterness. jinyoung doesn’t touch that minefield. but, since he likes yugyeom no matter how he treats him, jinyoung splits his coffee in half and shares one mug with yugyeom. he’ll just have to take his coffee with a bit of milk to make up for it.

it’s probably for the best, jinyoung thinks. he has to be able to offset the acrid taste of the break room coffee somehow.

jinyoung focuses back on the manuscript he had been writing, which is due to his supervisor by the end of the month. his problem has never been a matter of not writing enough – in fact, jinyoung is about ten thousand words _well_ over what he needs to be. his problem is cutting down his words enough for it to be succinct and clear. his grasp of the english language is sometimes still shaky, and tends to disappear when he needs it the most.

it was one reason why he wanted to work in dr. kim’s lab so much, since most of the people working there were korean. when jinyoung had rotated, he had the pleasure of meeting brian, a graduate student that defended a year ago, and jihyo, a student from their partner campus in south korea. they both moved on, but then yugyeom joined them – three years jinyoung’s junior in age, but only a year behind him in the program, since yugyeom matriculated right after his bachelors and jinyoung opted to do his masters first. it makes being away from jinhae a bit better, even though it must have been – what, almost fourteen years? since jinyoung moved with his family to the states.

“hyung,” yugyeom starts again, reaching over to poke jinyoung’s shoulder. “do you think you could check something over for me later? i’m a little unsure of how to interpret my results.”

“sure, i’ll be around till eight.”

“sweet. want to get dinner later?”

jinyoung shakes his head. “i’m running low on money, honestly… i’ll probably try to cook again tonight, or have ramen.”

“lets have ramen together, then,” yugyeom offers. “i’ll pay for it this time, since you paid for barbeque last time.”

“okay, sounds good,” jinyoung twirls a pen in between his fingers. “should we invite bambam?”

abruptly, the happy look on yugyeom’s face turns stormy at the mention of their lab manager and technician. he broods while curling over the edge of his computer again, clicking passive aggressively. after a moment, he says – a bit petulantly – “if you want to, i guess. it doesn’t matter to me.”

jinyoung bites his bottom lip to hide a smile. yugyeom’s crush on bambam is so transparent that jinyoung wonders hopelessly how bambam has never managed to notice, or if he deliberately ignores it. by the way he sees bambam sometimes stare after yugyeom aggressively when he doesn’t notice something about bambam, jinyoung’s betting his money on the both of them just being incredibly, obvliously stupid toward one another.

“i’ll text him, then,” jinyoung says, swiveling back to his work. and then, a little kinder, “you know that bambam’s sister’s friend, lisa, is new to the engineering program, right? he said he was showing her around as a favor to his little sister. you know how much he adores her.”

yugyeom doesn’t answer for a moment, but jinyoung smiles nonetheless when he hears the other go, “i know he does.” it’s one of the things they both admire about bambam – how fiercely loyal bambam is to his family, to the people he loves.

the three of them make up the small pool of people that work in their lab. they have a prospective masters student joining them in a little bit, so hopefully that’ll lighten up on some of the work that yugyeom and jinyoung have to do in the lab. jinyoung wonders if it’s worth mentioning bringing up a post-doc in the next lab meeting. heechul might not take it as well, though, and the thought in itself makes jinyoung sigh and give up before the thought has time to take hold.

they work at their desks quietly for a bit, yugyeom going back and forth between the lab space and the office space to complete an experiment. jinyoung returns to the break room to get another cup of coffee and makes a cup of tea for yugyeom while he’s at it.

bambam joins them sometime around five, when it’s starting to just get dark outside. jinyoung greets him with tired, blinking eyes; bambam’s holding a couple of white bags in his hands, shaking them in front of yugyeom. the younger, for his part, just stares at bambam like he’s a specter.

“i brought burgers,” bambam announces. “although, to be honest, i brought them nearly three hours ago. you two were so focused i couldn’t grab your attention. by the way, jinyoung, i need to talk to you about ordering more microcentrifuge tubes – our old brand is discontinued.”

“ah, shit,” jinyoung groans, rubbing the side of his face with one hand. he reaches out and makes grabby motions for the bag. “okay, tomorrow?”

“sounds good,” bambam holds the burger bags away, even when he and yugyeom both try to reach for it. “ah-ah, guys. it’s time to be more social for dinner. god knows you two will only go home and have ramen and watch korean dramas sadly.”

“you’re welcome to join,” yugyeom says meekly.

“hell yeah i am,” bambam says primly. “but seriously. remember lisa, the friend of my little sister’s that i took around the building? she’s settled into her lab all well and good, and she invited us to have lunch with her colleagues. come in, it’ll be nice to talk to people other the other side of the building. stop being cryptids.”

their research building is separated by card locked doors, with every floor and every wing on said floors separated into fields of specialty. yugyeom and jinyoung work in pathology, the fifth-floor north wing. across from them, taking up the much larger south wing, is the biomedical engineering department. jinyoung had once peered through the doors to see a bunch of wires strewn across the floor and towers of computers so high they reached the nearly nine-foot ceiling.

“right, how could we forget,” there goes sulking-yugyeom again. jinyoung leans back against his chair and stretches his legs, wiggling his toes as they reach closer to the space heater he keeps underneath his desk.

“come on,” bambam insists, and it speaks to how much jinyoung likes him that he actually gets up and forces yugyeom to get up too, following him out to the break room. he pinches yugyeom’s ear a little, hissing under his breath in korean, “how are you ever going to impress him if you keep acting like an angsty teenager?”

yugyeom spins around to face him, betrayed, but jinyoung just raises an eyebrow and waits for yugyeom to fight him on it. he doesn’t, and looks reasonably sullen that he can’t. jinyoung finds it too cute for words. yugyeom is like the little brother always-sometimes-never wanted, not counting the height yugyeom has on him.

bambam leads them to a group of people sitting at a long conglomeration of tables, where two of them are pushed together so that they’re pressed against one another side by side. it gives everyone a sense of comradery. bambam immediately heads to a tall girl with wide eyes and an infectious smile, speaking to her in quick thai. they converse for a while longer before bambam introduces them.

“this is jinyoung, the senior graduate student in our lab, and yugyeom,” bambam turns to him then, his smile soft, “another grad student and my best friend.”

“oh, this is who you told me about!” the girl who jinyoung assumes is lisa chirps. she nudges bambam a little, and jinyoung immediately knows that she knows of bambam’s feelings for yugyeom. “nice to meet you, yugyeom? am i saying that right?”

“yeah, actually,” yugyeom says in surprise. “your pronunciation is very good!”

“thanks,” lisa smiles, “my girlfriend is korean, so i’ve picked up a couple things from her.”

it’s almost funny, how yugyeom brightens up at that and beams at her, suddenly all shy smiles and welcome attitude. jinyoung snorts and elbows him so he’ll turn down the puppy dog look a little. jinyoung turns to the other people at the table, all of whom have started to dig into their burgers or meals. there’s three other guys and three women, all of their faces open and friendly.

“this is nayeon,” lisa says, motioning to a younger girl, “jennie, and rose. next to them is mark, jackson, and jae – “

“hi, i’m lim jaebeom, nice to meet you,” says a – a _very_ handsome man. jinyoung swallows a little, but blinks at the way the other leans forward a little to reach out a hand to shake. his korean pronunciation is perfect, even though his english makes him sound like a native. jinyoung has to shake himself out of staring when his eyes catch onto the way light glints off of the other’s piercings near his eye.

“park jinyoung,” he says instead, taking jaebeom’s hand. he expects a handshake, but the other just kind of – _holds_ onto it, like jinyoung has given him something precious. he smiles then, feeling a little awkward and wondering if he’s the one making it awkward. it wouldn’t be the first time. “um, like bambam said before.”

“wow,” says the one that lisa introduced as jackson, “ _wow_. jaebeom-hyung, that was _literally_ the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done. i’m dying of secondhand embarrassment.”

“sorry, i just wasn’t expecting… you?”

jinyoung’s brows reach his hairline incredulously. in that very moment, jinyoung finds himself sharply retorting, “well what else would you expect? you’ve hit the jackpot here.”

one of the girls, jennie, hides a chortle behind her hand. rose is smiling, eyes twinkling, and says something to lisa and bambam. jinyoung meets yugyeom’s eyes, bewildered, but the other just kind of looks at jaebeom as if the other has smacked him between the eyes. it makes jinyoung realize that he still has his hand in jaebeom’s in the end, to which he pulls away and clears his throat, running his fingers through his bangs before he sits down. yugyeom settles into the seat next to him, and jinyoung finds himself sitting across from jaebeom regardless. “not expecting him,” jackson cackles. “ _not expecting him_!”

“ _jackson,_ ” the dark haired man next to jackson sighs, shaking his head, before saying something in quick mandarin. jackson responds in kind, his nose scrunching, and jinyoung blinks at him. “you speak korean _and_ mandarin?”

jackson turns to him, grinning. “oh yeah, i lived for a couple of years in south korea when i was younger. following my parents around, that kind of thing.” there’s a stiltedness to his english, one that jinyoung recognizes in his own as someone who has learned the language second or third. it makes him smile at jackson, whose enthusiasm is infectious regardless. and then, jackson goes, “oh wow, you should smile more often, you’re intensely cute. mark, hold me back, i might just fall in love.”

jinyoung coughs, losing his smile, and mark rolls his eyes. jaebeom looks over at jackson with a sharp but betrayed look that jinyoung misses, thumping his own chest so he’ll stop coughing. yugyeom looks like he’s enjoying whatever is going on a bit too much. jinyoung will wheedle whatever it is out of him soon enough.

“nice to meet you!” yugyeom grins. “i can tell we’re going to be great friends, huh?”

jinyoung and yugyeom end up scrapping their plan to share ramen later, as the burgers bambam has gotten for them is large enough to keep both of them full for a couple of hours. one unfortunate byproduct, however, is that jinyoung feels too sleepy off of good food and new company that he has absolutely no motivation to go back to writing. in the end, he stretches out as it hits around seven pm and turns back to his phone. “i think i’m going to call it a night.”

“same,” yugyeom says sheepishly. lisa, rose, jennie and mark have already opted to leave a while ago, stating that they all had other things to get to. it’s left only jaebeom, bambam, yugyeom and jinyoung to converse with jackson, who has been single handedly carrying the conversation. jinyoung has learned so much about jackson’s life it’s almost hard to believe jinyoung hasn’t been friends with him before tonight.

“bam, are you going to leave too? we’ll walk you to the subway.”

“thanks,” bambam starts cleaning up his end of the table. “i need to go grocery shopping anyway, so i was going to drop by chinatown before i head home.”

“where do you live?” jackson asks.

“in astoria,” bambam admits. “it’s a bit of a commute from here. i know jinyoung and yugyeom live on the on-campus housing, but since i’m an employee and not a student, i can’t apply for housing here.”

“damn, that sucks,” jackson frowns. “i can’t live on the housing because of some issues with my visa, but i understand your pain, man. i have to commute all the way from jackson heights. and before you say anything,” jackson raises an eyebrow, self-suffering, “i _know_ , jackson lives in jackson heights, _please_ don’t make a joke out of it.”

“it must take you higher, huh,” jaebeom mutters under his breath in korean, and jinyoung hiccups through an accidental cough that he didn’t mean to do. yugyeom snickers outright, and bambam frowns at all of them, reaching over to pinch at yugyeom’s shoulder so he’ll explain what jaebeom said to him.

“do you live here too?” jinyoung asks jaebeom, curious.

“oh no,” jaebeom laughs, scratching the back of his head. the little bun that he has the top half of his long hair in gets messier every second. “i live with my aunt. born and raised in queens, you could say. i thought about living on campus for a while, but.” he shrugs. “i don’t want to leave her alone.”

“that’s nice,” jinyoung smiles. “my parents live in brooklyn now.”

“did you move from south korea? you have a little accent, like – _satoori.”_

jinyoung feels his ears turn red, and yugyeom cackles beside him. jinyoung hisses at him to shut up, mortified. “y-yeah,” he goes, hating how he’s never been able to get rid of the little accent he’s always had, even when speaking in korean. “my family is from jinhae.”

“he called out your _satoori_ , hyung,” yugyeom chortles, leaning over to explain to bambam, who laughs at first but insists that it’s part of jinyoung’s charm, _don’t be so embarrassed!_ jinyoung glares at both of them, red steadily creeping up to his face.

“sorry, i – i didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” jaebeom rushes to say.

“no, it’s – i’m just a little self-conscious about it, i guess,” jinyoung shuffles in his seat. “i got made fun of for my accent when i was younger, is all.”

“i completely understand,” jackson sympathizes. “i could never sound like a native in any language except canto. wherever i went, it just kept following me. but hey, embrace that accent! it’s like bambam’s accent, very adorable.”

at least bambam is turning red now, too, jinyoung thinks with a little smirk.

“hyung, we can head out together,” yugyeom says.

“i’ll get your stuff, you stay here.”

“i’ll head out with you guys,” jaebeom says, stand up to help jackson throw out the spare wax wrappers and napkins littered around their table. “there’s a lot of shit that goes down when it gets dark. then i’ll head back with jackson and bambam – are you guys going to catch the seven?”

bambam nods, rattling off the lines he usually takes to get to times square. jinyoung shares a brief look with yugyeom, one that speaks of surprise. “you don’t have to – “

“i think it’s a good idea,” jackson says. “there’s been way too much crap going on, and nowadays it’s been happening in broad daylight. my friend got mugged at like four in the afternoon a couple weeks ago. some guy just grabbed him across the mouth and demanded his wallet.”

“oh,” jinyoung says, taken aback, whereas yugyeom just shrugs. he turns to him, then. “you – aren’t you worried?”

“ah, hyung, i always forget you weren’t raised here. i’m kinda used to it,” yugyeom admits. “i grew up in flushing. some shit always goes down. didn’t i tell you about that time i walked past someone getting mugged when i was coming home from school when i was like…ten?”

“no way,” jaebeom grins, “i’m from forest hills.”

jaebeom and yugyeom delve into a quick conversation about their neighborhoods, jokingly playing around with each other and letting their english devolve into slang and heavily accented words that jinyoung can’t really catch onto. he’s managed to live in the city for almost half his life, but he still can’t catch on when they speak that fast. instead, he helps jackson and bambam clean up and asks for them to wait so he can grab their bags.

after a quick check to make sure that both their data is saved on the computer and everything is shut down, jinyoung grabs yugyeom’s bag and heads back out to the break room. he and jaebeom have become fast friends, it looks like; yugyeom is normally shy, but he can take to new people that he clicks with like a duck to water.

“they both like the same music,” bambam says, bemused. “i think they’ve literally been talking about trading soundclouds for the past ten minutes.”

jinyoung nudges him. “you okay?”

“i’m okay,” bambam says automatically, then blinks at jinyoung, confused. “why – why wouldn’t i be?”

he shrugs, then. the extent of which bambam likes yugyeom is unknown to jinyoung. for his part, yugyeom gets a little childish whenever bambam doesn’t utilize 100% of his attention on the younger, or talks about someone else other than their close group of friends in a better light. why yugyeom doesn’t simply reach out and ask bambam on a date? jinyoung considers it one of the world’s most confusing and unanswerable questions. moreso, the last time jinyoung had asked point blank, yugyeom had turned so red that jinyoung could fry an egg on his face.

yugyeom mumbled out a quick _it’s not that easy_ and buried himself back into making agarose gels. jinyoung, pitying him and taking note of bambam’s heeled shoes against the tiled floor, let the topic drop.

“oh, i gotta go to the bathroom really quick,” yugyeom looks around for his bag and says in korean, “hyung, you better not steal anything. keep holding it, i’ll be back in a minute.”

jinyoung bristles at the informal language out of pure grumpy spite, but doesn’t mind much more than a couple of grumbles and a narrowed look in yugyeom’s direction. he hears, vaguely, jaebeom give a low chuckle. his laugh is low and pleasing, jinyoung thinks. he’s suddenly overtly aware of how close jaebeom is standing to him.

“he’s kind of a brat, huh?”

“he pretends that he doesn’t know what _jondaemal_ is by saying he’s first generation korean american,” jinyoung huffs out an annoyed breath in yugyeom’s direction. “not like i believe that, the brat. i’ve heard him talk to his parents and his older brother. his _hyung_ , euigyeom, puts the fear of god in him. if only i could do the same.”

“oh? you’re not that scary.”

jinyoung whips around to look at jaebeom, raising an eyebrow. behind them bambam chokes out, “oh _no_ man, jinyoung is _terrifying_.”

now he’s caught in a dilemma: does he agree that he’s terrifying and reassert his authority, or insist that he’s harmless and not a somewhat grumpy before 9 am, petty individual? jinyoung settles for glaring at bambam, who snickers before clearing his throat.

“he looks like a cat when he’s glaring at you,” jackson snickers, holding onto jaebeom’s shoulder. jinyoung turns around to point the full force of his glare on jackson. the other takes an automatic step back, jinyoung notes with pleasure.

“i scratch,” he deadpans.

it’s at this moment that yugyeom decides to return, reaching out to bother jinyoung but wrapping his long arms around him. he knows that jinyoung hates it when yugyeom uses any part of his height at jinyoung, whether it be to look down at him after making a joke or putting his chin on top of jinyoung’s head, which is _dumb_ because yugyeom can only do it if he tiptoes, but he’ll go through the embarrassment just to make jinyoung seethe anyway.

“oh man, i wanna do that too,” bambam says, and latches onto jinyoung’s arm with both hands. he and bambam are the same height, so his head knocks into jinyoung’s. “stop moving so much!”

“both of you leeches _get off me_ – “

“you guys are really close, huh?” jaebeom half smiles, and it’s devastatingly good looking on him. jinyoung turns away immediately. he pushes yugyeom off of him for good measure, too.

the night air is crisp and sweet when jinyoung inhales it in. it’ll never compare to the air in jinhae, the smoky salt of the sea infiltrating his senses, but they’re close enough to the river that jinyoung can sometimes grasp tastes of it. there’s always an undercurrent of ammonia and petrol that lines manhattan air, though, but it’s become similar to home for the past few years.

“i might actually drop by for a drink with a friend,” jackson admits, checking his phone. “it’s not too late, and it’s nice outside. i’ll just split with you guys when we’re near the bus, since it’s on the west side.”

“sounds good,” jaebeom says. “is it namjoon?”

jackson says something in affirmative. jinyoung slaps yugyeom’s hand, which had been insistently poking him in the side, and ignores the way bambam snickers behind him. he doesn’t know what they’re laughing at, nor does he _want_ to know. in the past two years he’s been in yugyeom’s presence, jinyoung has learned how to ignore most of yugyeom’s teasing. he and bambam put together only makes it worse.

jackson gets busy to talking to someone on his phone, and the terrible twos are behind him, looking at something on yugyeom’s phone. that leaves jinyoung to fall into step with jaebeom, who easily shuffles next to him and matches him, step for step. jinyoung smiles faintly at the other before double checking to make sure his phone is exactly where he left it.

as they walk down the dusky road to get to the subway, jinyoung’s eyes automatically follow the huge, long lines of the skyscrapers. he’ll never get tired of this, he thinks, the sheer intensity and height of all the buildings in manhattan. it makes him feel so infinitesimally small.

“kinda crazy, huh?” he hears jaebeom say. “i always liked that we could see park towers from here.”

as if drawn to it, jinyoung turns to the tallest structure in the faint distance, a looming building that points up toward the sky – as if reaching for the stars. across the front, in flashy blocking lettering, reads _PARK._ the windows are lit in different colors. it’s hard to imagine that there are actual people inside there, walking around the some hundred floors that are located inside.

jinyoung turns to jaebeom. “did you know that i share the same name with their ceo?”

“oh?” jaebeom quirks a finely shaped eyebrow. jinyoung feels his throat dry. he turns away from making eye contact with jaebeom, cursing all the fine men in the world everywhere. “park jinyoung?”

“yeah,” jinyoung clears his throat. “i always thought it was kind of funny. not that i’d ever be mistaken for him – i saw his pictures, he’s a lot older than i am.”

“you’re a lot cuter, too,” jaebeom says absentmindedly, not noticing the way jinyoung’s feet screech over the gravel as he forgets how to walk for a quick second. when jinyoung’s head snaps around to look at him, jaebeom flushes and backtracks. “i – i mean, you know. you’re younger than him anyway, ha. so automatically cuter.”

“oh,” jinyoung says, as if he understands. he really doesn’t. maybe it’s another american culture thing that he just doesn’t get? there tends to be a lot of those. he mulls it over and makes a promise to himself to ask yugyeom after this night is over.

as promised, jackson splits with them at the bus stop. he gives jaebeom a huge hug as he’s leaving, and to jinyoung’s surprise, brings him into one as well. jackson is deceivingly strong, jinyoung comes to realize, as he has to pat jackson’s back incessantly to signal that he’s _running out of air please let me go_.

jinyoung wishes bambam goodbye, bringing him in for a big hug himself and smoothing down the flyaways of his hair, since jinyoung knows how much bambam hates having any hair out of place. he may complain, but bambam suffers through the ministrations without complaint. he had yugyeom go through some complicated handshake as goodbye, even though both bambam and yugyeom would deny ever doing such a thing when confronted about it. this, too, is something jinyoung decides not to think on too deeply.

when it’s just them three, jaebeom brings his hands close together and rubs them, mildly going, “it’s a little cold out, huh?” he looks at jinyoung as he says it.

“that’s true,” blithely, yugyeom reaches over and grabs jinyoung’s hand. “hyung, you get cold really easily, so you should hang onto me. you can pretend to be my girlfriend.”

jinyoung rolls his eyes and pinches the side of yugyeom’s neck. “what did you say, punk?” their conversation quickly delves into korean. jinyoung misses the way yugyeom sticks his tongue out at jaebeom, but the other doesn’t, huffing out a soft laugh.

“you would think that living in a city full of superheroes would decrease the crime rate,” jinyoung muses as they head to the housing provided by their institution. jinyoung passes by a little grocery store and makes a note to visit there soon; he’s running out of milk and some other things. which means he might have to drop by h-mart, too, but that necessitates another long trip to midtown.

“they kind of have their own territory,” jaebeom says. “manhattan belongs to the avengers and jyp, the park jinyoung of the towers,” jaebeom grins at jinyoung. “hell’s kitchen goes to daredevil. and – “

“spiderman belongs to queens!” yugyeom says loudly in jinyoung’s ear, eyes suddenly bright, like a child. he says _spiderman_ in a very korean way, letting it flow with the rest of his words.

“well, i know _that_ one,” jinyoung retorts back.

“you do?” jaebeom’s eyebrows are up at his hairline.

“yugyeom is a big fan,” jinyoung says. “i hear about his escapades all the time. he used to come in some days and go, _hyung look at this! isn’t he so cool? i’m pretty sure he’s a couple of years older than me what if we live in the same place in queens and went to the same school and –_ “

“ _jinyoung-hyung_ ,” yugyeom just about screeches, “i don’t sound like that! and i never said that!” sounding, with near perfect pitch, just as how jinyoung had imitated him.

jaebeom doesn’t look like he’s ready to make fun of yugyeom, though, since he just laughs and smiles broadly at the other. “so you’re a big fan, i take it?”

“i think everyone from queens has to be,” yugyeom says, shaking his head to give jaebeom the full effect of his wide eyed look. “he’s a hero for the little guy, you know?”

for a moment, jaebeom is quiet. jinyoung notes the almost pensive expression on his face, how he’s staring at yugyeom fondly, but with a hint of – of shyness? but jinyoung can’t fault him for feeling fond toward yugyeom. despite how the other may annoy him at times (and mostly on purpose), jinyoung knows he would burn down the entire world and then himself if anything happened to yugyeom.

“yeah, i feel you,” jaebeom finally responds, shoving his hands in his pockets. he turns away when they arrive at the curb that leads to the gated housing jinyoung and yugyeom currently live in. “see you guys! it was nice to meet you around.”

“are you sure you’ll be able to get home okay?” jinyoung asks dubiously.

“yeah, hyung,” yugyeom adds on, brows creasing in the middle, “you sure you’ll be okay? here, take our numbers, i’ll make a group chat on kakaotalk – wait, do you have kakaotalk? jinyoung-hyung _only_ uses kakaotalk – and you can text us when you’re home!”

“yeah, i do.” a flurry of movement, they’ve all got each other’s numbers, and yugyeom has put them in a three-person group chat. jinyoung isn’t quite sure what to make of it, staring down at jaebeom’s profile picture; his back, broad and welcoming, turned toward the camera while he stares over a river with a small, mysterious smile on his face. it’s kind of pretentious, and jinyoung hates how much he likes it.

“i’ll be fine, don’t worry,” jaebeom assures them. “i can take of myself just fine. it’ll be around eleven when i get home, though, so don’t expect anything from me before then. i’ll probably be sleeping on the train.”

“ _how_ ,” jinyoung mumbles, even though yugyeom just nods like he understands. he’ll never get used to the loud, screeching rumbling of the new york subway line, though jinyoung supposes that the both of them must be used to it by now.

the bid goodbye to jaebeom, who rushes to head down the subway line that’s down the block. jinyoung elbows yugyeom as soon as he goes, looking down at their re-clasped hands with a raised brow. “why are you being so clingy?”

“i just wanted to hold your hand, hyung,” yugyeom says innocently.

jinyoung rolls his eyes, but lets it go.

/

heechul is in office that friday morning, which means that jinyoung is suddenly given a bunch of things to do in a short period of time that he hadn’t planned on doing before. heechul always comes back from international conferences with a zeal that sparks off in his eyes (and sometimes his hair). while it’s nice to delve into deep discussions with him in a way that is hard to do with anyone else, jinyoung also has his limits. namely, running more experiments that would take up possibly more of his time while working on this manuscript and his own upcoming experiments.

jinyoung settles down at his desk after a nearly two hour long meeting. he stares blankly at his desk for a moment, ignoring the sounds of yugyeom settling in and the way bambam sitting cross legged at his desk, a feat of contortion considering he’s about seventy percent legs.

“you okay, hyung?” yugyeom asks in greeting, patting jinyoung’s shoulder. “i brought donuts for all of us, since it’s donut day. they’re from the really posh shop you wanted to try out down the street. i got a groupon coupon.”

“give me whatever has the most chocolate,” jinyoung mumbles.

yugyeom places a triple dutch chocolate cake donut on jinyoung’s table and lets him be, immediately putting on his headphones and walking down the hall to head into their lab space. their labs and the office spaces are separated by a pressurized door; they have to share their space with the other faculty that work on their wing.

jinyoung works a bit longer on the paper that he’s writing on before he, too, puts on his airpods and heads inside. yugyeom is in the middle of working in tissue culture when jinyoung passes him by. he pulls on a pair of large gloves and heads over to his bench, starting up a list of everything he has to do for the day.

bambam is talking to someone over the phone – arguing, most likely – and probably asking after a list of things now that heechul is back and has a million ideas he wants them to pull off without doing himself.

it’s around four pm that jinyoung finally has time for a three-hour long break. he pulls of his gloves and throws them in biohazard, looking over at yugyeom. “hey, do you want to go and grab food?”

from behind them bambam calls out, “buy me a sandwich!”

“just come with us!”

“i can’t,” he grumps, “i have to look over these orders for heechul. i don’t want to have it open for tomorrow, so you’ll have to go without me.”

yugyeom pulls away from his hood, frowning. he swirls one of his petri dishes for a moment before sighing, setting it down. “yeah, i’ll go get lunch. i don’t think these can be salvaged, anyway – they’re pretty much all dead, which sucks.”

jinyoung peruses through his phone as they wait on line at the cafeteria. he goes through instagram, naver, and kakaostory in the span of a few minutes, finally settling on the new york times at the end of it. their blazing headline reads: _masked web-slinger catches crime in it’s coup_ , which is a nice work of alliteration if jinyoung has to say so himself. he still has to look up what the word “coup” means, though. he nudges yugyeom and shows him the headline. “look, your favorite made it to the big leagues.”

“i saw that this morning,” he exclaims while opening up a granola bar for himself. “he broke into a drug ring and left most of the guys there webbed up against the walls. the police found them a couple hours later, and they couldn’t break out at all. apparently one of the guys was trying to cut through the webbing with a pocket knife, but it wouldn’t budge.”

“damn,” jinyoung looks down at the head photo, which shows a shadowy image of someone with their head down, backlit by numerous red and blue police sirens. at the very bottom, he reads the name credited with writing the article and taking the photo. “jay park, also known as park jae-beom,” jinyoung reads out loud, amused.

“think that’s jaebeom hyung with an alias?” yugyeom laughs, and jinyoung just turns to him and shrugs. “man, who knows. wait, i’m going to get three slices of pizza. they only have two more meat slices though – “

“save me one,” jinyoung says immediately, still staring down at his phone. after a moment of contemplation, he finds himself bookmarking the article and setting it aside.

he startles and almost drops his phone when a voice says, “is that about spiderman?”

jinyoung looks up, eyes wide. jaebeom looks at him with a curious look in his eyes, his hair pulled away from his face in a very attractive bun at the top of his head. jinyoung coughs and turns back to his phone, pretending to wipe the screen. “sorry, did i startle you?”

before he can insist that _no_ , he wasn’t startled, yugyeom chimes in. “yeah, jinyoung-hyung gets startled easily. he’s not scared of anything except small noises and heights.”

“shut up,” jinyoung kicks yugyeom’s shin. “and i’m okay. spiderman was just on the front page, so i noticed and showed it to yugyeom. he’s the guy’s number one fan.”

“you’re not?” jaebeom asks, reaching up to brush aside few strands of hair that had left his ponytail. it’s only because jinyoung is following the way his hand moves (not that he’d ever admit it) that he notices the slight discoloration at jaebeom’s cheekbone. his eyes widen.

“hey, yugyeom-ah,” jinyoung begins in careful korean, “do you think you could also buy hyung a coffee from the starbucks over there? i’ll pay you back.”

“coffee and pizza?” yugyeom mumbles to himself, confused. “sure, whatever. why – “

“i need to use the bathroom,” jinyoung announces, and reaches over to grab onto jaebeom’s sleeve. it takes everyone aback, jinyoung especially (and he’s the one _doing it_ ) but no one seems to question it. in fact, yugyeom just kind of stares at them open mouthed as jinyoung goes on to say, “come with me, jaebeom?” he raises his hands in a solemn thumbs up that jinyoung isn’t sure how to answer, but he drags jaebeom along with him to the nearest bathroom.

“uh,” jaebeom starts, looking strangely red in the ears but allowing himself to be dragged along by jinyoung. “wait, this is – “

jinyoung pushes them both into the bathroom and then checks around quickly to make sure there’s no one there with them. the stalls are all open and it’s clear elsewhere. satisfied, he turns to jaebeom and raises an eyebrow. “that’s a pretty shit cover up job.”

baffled, jaebeom just – stares. “what?”

jinyoung points to his own cheekbone. “whoever covered your bruise. they did a bad job of it. if it’s you, then i’m sorry to tell you this, but i think you should stick to science.” jinyoung finds it easier to delve into english for this part, a layer that separates how awkward he actually feels dragging jaebeom to the bathroom. but he’s dealt with this kind of thing before, and he knows to some degree how to react. “do you need help covering it up?”

for a moment, jaebeom just kind of stares at him, open mouthed and disbelieving. jinyoung fights the urge to clear his throat, crossing his arms defensively in front of him. he makes sure not to twist his expression into something impatient or bitchy, which he knows he has a tendency to do when he’s nervous. jinyoung thinks resolutely of wonpil, tries to remember how he had fucked up getting his best friend to talk to him, and forces himself to keep waiting.

“um,” jaebeom starts, hesitant and slow. “i – okay? yeah, that would be…helpful.”

jinyoung nods. “alright, wait here.”

he rushes up to the fifth floor to grab a couple of his things and stuff them in his pockets, bringing them back down to the men’s bathroom and breathing a sigh of relief when he notes that it’s still pretty empty. jinyoung empties his pockets on the counter table, letting a bunch of bottles clatter against the granite.

“um,” jaebeom stares at it all. “that’s – “

“wash your face,” jinyoung starts, pointing to the sink.

it’s a bit quiet, then, as jaebeom reaches over to wash the shoddily done makeup job off of his face. he wipes it all away with a clean tissue. from the curve of his eye to the side of his temple is a large purple bruise that is yellowing at the sides. jinyoung winces just looking at it. it also looks very, very familiar. like someone has aimed their punch a little too close, and jaebeom had just managed to swerve at the last minute.

jinyoung doesn’t try to show that his hands are shaking, but he tries his best. the truth is, he’s not sure how to approach jaebeom with this. he’s gone through this once with wonpil, sure, but wonpil was his childhood best friend. he barely knows jaebeom. jinyoung pops open a bottle and starts dabbing some of it on the bruise, telling jaebeom, “let me know if it hurts you.”

he works in general silence for a while, working to cover up the bruise, eyes firmly situated on the edges of it. he’s glad that it’s not on the side where jaebeom has his piercings; jinyoung can only imagine how painful something like that must be.

“you’re pretty good with this,” jaebeom says all of a sudden, glancing at jinyoung’s careful fingers. “do you…”

“a little,” jinyoung, relieved to have something else to talk about than the glaring elephant in the room, answers quickly. “i – um, i did this for my best friend at first, when we were growing up. i don’t wear it much myself, but then i started again at the end of undergrad… it was a good way to show that i wasn’t tired all the time. bambam is really into makeup too, so i kind of started wearing it again with him. he likes that we can talk about it.”

“that’s nice,” jaebeom says softly. “you’re good at it.”

“thanks,” jinyoung presses his lips together and moves back. “you – you know that friend i mentioned? that i did it for? he also wasn’t really good at it… he had to hide a lot of bruises. it didn’t take me long to see through it. but the best way to prevent bruises is to stop them from happening, so…” he hopes that he’s kind of hinting at what he has to without saying it outright. he doesn’t want jaebeom to stiffen up and shut him out, the way wonpil had when jinyoung first confronted him.

“oh, i heal fast,” jaebeom assures him, looking at himself in the mirror. “trust me, this’ll be gone soon.”

“well – that’s fine, i mean, but. it’d still be nicer to if you didn’t have any.” jinyoung shuffles a little, feeling awkward. “i know we’re not very close friends, or even friends at all, but if you ever want to talk about it – i mean, if someone is hurting you, i think – i think you should – well, you don’t have to _do_ anything but – “ jinyoung makes a noise of frustration, wishing that for once when it really mattered, he wouldn’t be stumbling over himself.

jaebeom turns to him then, eyes wide, and asks, “what are you talking about?”

and because he looks genuinely confused, face open and flabbergasted, jinyoung swallows. he wonders if jaebeom is a good actor or if he really has no idea what jinyoung is talking about. “i’m – if anyone is hurting you, i mean. i know i’m not your friend, but if you’re in a bad place, i’m saying i’d help even if you don’t know me very well – “

“whoa,” jaebeom holds up his hands, understanding washing over his face as he coughs, “no, _no_ you’ve got it all wrong haha i’m – i’m as single as can possibly be, honestly! i got this after tripping down the stairs a couple days ago, i hit my face against the side of the banister.”

jinyoung blinks, bewildered. “against the…you hit your face against the side of the banister and ended up with a fist-sized bruise?”

a moment of quiet. and then, a little embarrassed, jaebeom admits, “i may have been fighting with someone at the stairs. but it isn’t anything like that, i promise,” he laughs. “actually, my friend looks a little worse, if anything. we’re always been a little rough with each other.”

“oh,” jinyoung’s shoulders, once tense, relaxes. “oh, that’s – that’s good to hear, i guess.” and abruptly, he turns to the bottles of stuff on the granite counter, stuffing them back in his pockets and hunching over himself a little. good job on jumping to conclusions and making an ass of yourself, park jinyoung.

“hey,” jaebeom starts, waiting until jinyoung glances over at him. there’s a genuine, small smile on his face. “if you’re embarrassed, don’t be. and thank you,” he taps the side of his face. “i think this can constitute us as being friends now, right?”

and jinyoung, because he’s unable to sometimes answer like a normal human being, gives jaebeom a look and moves past him to head back to yugyeom. unfortunately, the other follows him easily, settling into the seat next to yugyeom and across from jinyoung. he doesn’t even have lunch, jinyoung thinks to himself, stealing his slice of meat lovers pizza from yugyeom and chomping down almost immediately.

“hyung, i got you a slice too,” yugyeom enthusiastically pushes over a piece of plain cheese pizza with olives and mushrooms. “i just guessed on what you would like.”

“oh, this is my favorite,” jaebeom says, surprised. “thanks. i’ll pay you back right now, wait – both of you are crazy observational, huh – “ the last part is said in a mutter as he digs into his wallet and pulls out a couple of crumpled bills, placing it in yugyeom’s shirt pocket. the other takes it happily.

“you guys were there for a long time,” yugyeom states, looking between jinyoung and jaebeom with a shit-eating grin on his face. jinyoung resists the urge to either smack him or pinch his cheek, which is usually the mood he has toward yugyeom at any given time.

“we got caught up with someone i knew on the way back,” jaebeom lies smoothly, leaving jinyoung to stare at how _natural_ that sounded. “sorry about that.”

yugyeom waves it all aside, and jinyoung is glad to let the subject drop. they turn quickly back to what they were talking about before, yugyeom delving into one of his favorite interests other than cell culture, dancing, and smooth house music: spiderman. jinyoung surreptitiously pulls out his phone and texts wonpil just to check on how he’s doing, asking if they could call again sometime soon.

“i’m telling you guys, the guy is definitely out age. twenties, no doubt. when he first started out like – what, ten years ago? – he was scrawny as hell, and now he’s like an actual _man_.”

jinyoung peers at him over his bite of pizza as jaebeom seems to bite his own the wrong way. worried, yugyeom reaches over and pats his back in concern. “i thought your type was more loud, not mysterious at all, and thai.”

“ _hyung!_ ” yugyeom says shrilly, looking around quickly.

“relax, bambam told us to bring him back a sandwich, remember? he never ditches work.”

yugyeom groans, sinking down into his seat. “shut up, i can still appreciate a nice bod, even if it’s only from blurry pictures.”

“i guess,” jinyoung says, not really paying to the conversation.

“you don’t think spiderman is attractive?” jaebeom pipes up with, catching jinyoung’s eye and grinning as soon as he does.

“i’ve never seen his face before?”

“hyung,” yugyeom waves his phone at him, opening up a blurry photo, “his _body,_ hyung. you don’t think he has a nice bod?”

jinyoung peers at the photo that yugyeom shows him, and as honest as he’s able, “i guess, if you’re into that.”

both jaebeom and yugyeom stare at him with betrayed faces. jinyoung shrugs and returns to his pizza. “what’s really interesting is his webs.”

jaebeom pauses at that. “his webs?”

jinyoung nods, motioning for yugyeom to hand over his phone. he scrolls through until he gets to the numerous spiderman articles yugyeom has bookmarked (god, he’s so predictable) and comes across one photo where the perpetrators of a bank robbery are webbed up to the wall. “look at this,” jinyoung zooms in on the photo. “see this? they’re all wet and it looks like some of them are moving against the webs. there’s also webs against some of their mouths, but all of them look just fine and not like they’ve suffocated to death. there was also one of the guys webbed up to the ceiling.”

“i can’t believe you read the article and the only thing you got out of it was the _webs_ ,” yugyeom mutters, but jaebeom actually looks interested in what jinyoung is saying. figures, since jinyoung recalls at the last moment that the other works in bioengineering.

“spider silk is known to be incredibly ductile and have high tensile strength while having a fraction of the density that steel has. a lot of it transfers here in terms of strength and flexibility. it also looks like it’s waterproof, since everything looks wet, meaning that it rained.”

“i thought you could wash off the webs, though? that’s how the nypd cleans it up?”

“water pressure,” jinyoung says, handing yugyeom’s phone back to him. “rain doesn’t have the pressure that those huge hoses do. that means the webs are able to be used even when it’s wet but can easily be removed without much detriment to the environment. you told me that spiderman makes his own webs? that’s one crazy invention,” jinyoung wipes his hands on a spare tissue to get rid of the pizza grease. “i’d like to figure out what he makes those webs out of, honestly.”

“no one’s been able to figure it out, as far as i know,” jaebeom adds lightly.

“you too, jaebeom-hyung?!”

“hey, this stuff is what i work on for a living,” jaebeom argues. “of _course_ i’d find it interesting. i’m just surprised that you noticed all of that stuff too, jinyoung. i didn’t expect that from you, to be honest.”

“jinyoung-hyung did his undergrad in chemical engineering,” yugyeom offers up, to which jinyoung rolls his eyes at him. “god only knows why he chose to go into disease.”

“i _like_ it,” jinyoung says stubbornly. “besides, that just means when i start to work for the cdc and spend all of my time creating the next biological weapon in a bsl-4, no one will know it’s me.”

yugyeom scoffs. “like you would ever use your brain for the power of evil. besides, i still don’t know how you ended up so far away from engineering.”

“i started in bio and physics and ended up here,” jaebeom offers. “double majored in college. i finished pretty fast though, so i ended up doing a masters before applying for this program. i’m almost done with it, regardless.”

jinyoung perks up. “you finished early too?”

yugyeom sniffs. “alright, you geniuses, no need to parade all of your intellectual prowess around those who took four years to graduate, okay?”

playfully, jinyoung reaches over to pinch at yugyeom’s ear. “you know that’s not what we’re doing. it’s always good to take all the time you need, alright? you know how much i regret killing myself to finish in three years.”

“says the one who finished early,” yugyeom mumbles, but he looks slightly more appeased.

“i finished in three years after stocking up on college credit when i was in high school. the double major was a little difficult, but i managed,” jaebeom shrugs. “i did my masters in biomed engineering, though, and then i knew that this was what i wanted to do, so i applied for the graduate program here.”

“mine is kind of the opposite,” jinyoung surmises, meeting jaebeom’s eyes excitedly. “i finished my chem-e degree in three years and then did my masters in biology. the lab i worked in was great, and i found that i really enjoyed being there and that bio held my attention in a way that my undergrad major didn’t. i applied here after that and have been here for around three years? i won’t be done for a while, is what i’m trying to say.”

“hey, as long as you take all the time you need,” jaebeom repeats what jinyoung had said earlier, and jinyoung finds himself smiling at jaebeom.

yugyeom looks between the two of them and fake gags to the side. then he texts jinyoung that he’s going back up to the lab, _feel free to talk as long as you want i have better things to do_ , and rolls his eyes as he heads away from where jinyoung and jaebeom have devolved into a conversation about what their favorite circuit build is. _nerds_.

/

jinyoung walks into the office on tuesday with a light smile on his face as he takes a sip of his coffee and answers the most recent text he’s gotten. it’s balancing act, trying to make sure that he won’t drop his non-sludge, bitter with a hint of citrus aftertaste coffee on his phone, but jinyoung manages it fine.

 _it_ is _a good place, i can’t believe i’ve never been before,_ jinyoung sends off.

jaebeom answers back a moment later. _there’s always stuff like this in the tiniest places in the city. i don’t mind showing you another one some other time. there’s this one place near fortieth street that does noraebang and gives beer as a service_.

 _sounds good_ , jinyoung sends back. he’s missed going to karaoke; it’s always a touch too expensive, something that he and yugyeom can never afford together. they never make it back to queens, either, where yugyeom swears everything tastes like it’s actually from south korea, since it’s an hour of a commute.

that just makes him wonder how jaebeom and bambam do it. jinyoung had commuted about an hour from his home in jinhae to a specialized school for lessons, but he treated his home like a hotel: there to eat, sleep, and shower.

“so,” bambam begins, spinning around in his chair as soon as jinyoung sets his bag down at his own desk. “a little birdie told me that you’ve been getting back into the dating game.”

“what birdie?” jinyoung sends a sticker when jaebeom sends him the most recent paper he’s published, since jinyoung had asked to read it. “i’m not dating anyone.”

bambam eyes him up and down, tsking. “he’s so oblivious, he doesn’t even realize,” bambam sighs.

jinyoung turns to him then, raising an eyebrow. “what was that?”

“nothing!”

“doesn’t sound like nothing. come on, if you have something to say to my face, do it now.”

bambam makes an ‘x’ in front of him with his arms. ever since jinyoung had gently and politely brought the other to his knees after bambam continuously called him _junior_ – a nickname that jinyoung, to this day, still doesn’t know the origins of – bambam doesn’t underestimate jinyoung’s wrath.

“that’s what i thought,” jinyoung sniffs, turning back to his bag to grab his headphones. “tell gyeom that i want to talk to him whenever he comes in.”

“got it, mom,” bambam says carelessly, turning back to his own computer to answer a slew of emails. jinyoung passes him by and reads that at least five of them are from heechul. he doesn’t envy bambam at all.

yugyeom joins him while he’s loading a western blot. jinyoung pulls one of his airpods out and nods his head at yugyeom’s sleepy hello. jinyoung can never understand how yugyeom sleeps for twelve hours straight; yugyeom never understands how jinyoung can be awake with the sunrise.

he starts to pull out a couple of things from his drawers. jinyoung sets his chamber to run for an hour. “heechul wants us to get some data on the latest line of cells he got from a collaborator in japan. he says that they’ll be in next week, but i don’t want to touch them without going through you first.”

“but you taught me how to do cell culture in the first place,” yugyeom frowns.

“i haven’t been doing it in a while, so i’m rusty. i’d rather go over it again with you, if that’s okay,” jinyoung starts to pile up glassware for bambam to wash and sterilize later. “i can explain what the heck he wanted me to do in the first place, maybe it’ll make more sense to you, since i have no idea how this’ll fit into my thesis.”

they chat for a while longer, all up until jinyoung gets another text message on kakaotalk. he tries to discreetly open it up, but of _course_ yugyeom notices. he gets a stupid smirk for his troubles, which jinyoung promptly ignores.

“is that _jaebeom-hyung_ ,” yugyeom singsongs. “it’s only been a week but you guys act like you’ve known each other for years. it’s kind of disgusting.”

“no, we don’t,” jinyoung sends another sticker to jaebeom. “we’re friends.” and he’s kind of glad that jaebeom _is_ his friend. jinyoung’s never met anyone he’s just _clicked_ with so easily, like he had slipped into a warm bed or found a sweater that fit him perfectly.

/

jinyoung meets jaebeom for karaoke a couple of days later, on a friday night. they had invited both bambam, yugyeom, and a couple of people from jaebeom’s lab – jackson and mark, if jinyoung remembers right – but they all had prior plans. bambam and yugyeom had a netflix marathon of some show they had waited a whole year for, so jinyoung didn’t attempt to convince them differently.

it’s beginning to settle more quickly into winter now. jinyoung shivers a little at the biting cold that greets him as he heads outside, but jaebeom is on another level. he’s considerably packed up all the way to the ears, donning a huge puffed jacket and three layers of clothes. jinyoung spies at least two pairs of flannel.

jaebeom raises a sheepish mitten covered hand. “hey.”

“are we going to the north pole?” jinyoung asks in korean, switching languages easily. after a moment, jaebeom had asked jinyoung to call him ‘ _hyung_ ’, and whenever they’re together they try to speak as much korean as possible. jaebeom had stated that he wanted to be more fluent in his mother tongue.

“north pole?” he repeats the words, and jinyoung translates it into english for him. jaebeom gives him a considering look, like he’s filing away the words in some folder in that big brain of his. jinyoung has never met anyone as _quick_ as jaebeom, an intense cleverness hiding behind his sleek eyes that never seems to forget a word jinyoung says.

“repeat that pronunciation?” jaebeom asks, eyes concentrated on jinyoung’s mouth as he repeats the word. they’ve already started to head toward the subway. “ _north pole_. did i get it right?”

“you did,” jinyoung laughs, bringing his hands up to cover his mouth. “perfect again, as usual. where does all of that hide, up there?”

“look whose talking,” jaebeom scoffs. “i forced you to say you didn’t know something about a thermodynamics question and you texted me at 1am with an answer, citations included.”

jinyoung scoffs and bumps shoulders with jaebeom, still new at the surprising amount of touchiness between them. he thought that jaebeom would be more like yugyeom, who doesn’t like to be as touchy as jinyoung intrinsically is. bambam, too, isn’t really as used to it. they’ve gotten a lot better at it after realizing that was one of jinyoung’s love languages, and now they mostly don’t mind, but jinyoung knows that it’s different here than it is back home in jinhae. jaebeom seems to take it really well, though, and sometimes initiates it first. it makes jinyoung feel a bit more confident, more confident to just say whatever he wants around jaebeom.

“it was a good question,” jinyoung admits. “come on, i want to sing to momoland.”

they head inside the subway car and wait till it’s rattling and screeching off downtown. jaebeom seems to shudder as he leans against the doors. jinyoung frowns. “are you still cold?”

“yeah,” jaebeom admits. “i’m, uh, i’m not the best at keeping body heat.”

jinyoung furrows his brow. “what? does that mean you’re not good at getting warm?”

“something like that.”

“can i help?”

jaebeom blinks at him. “i mean, i don’t know how you would – “

jinyoung steps beside him and leans in close, pressing their arms together. he knows that he tends to run a little warm, something that his mom has always joked was an effect of living in the south. jaebeom stiffens up for a moment before relaxing. jinyoung does a half-turn to meet jaebeom’s eyes, glad that they’re at the same height so he doesn’t have to crane his head to look at him like he does with yugyeom. “do you think this’ll help?”

“yes,” jaebeom says quickly, before clearing his throat. “i mean – yeah. yeah, it’ll help a lot, it’s already kinda helping.”

jinyoung starts prepping a bunch of songs that he wants to sing at the karaoke place, feeling a fission of excitement run through him that he hasn’t experienced in a while. “we should sing this one. and this one. do you know this trot song? do you even listen to trot?”

“my aunt plays a lot of trot music, you know,” jaebeom scoffs, “i’m not _completely_ white washed.”

“your accent says differently,” he jokes back, even though in truth jaebeom sounds more like a native korean day by day. jinyoung catches onto something at the last second and frowns. “your aunt?”

“ah.” they wait until the next stop comes, rumbling through the station and ending at a screeching halt. a crowd of people filter into the dimly lit, dirty subway car, pressing jinyoung and jaebeom closer. it’s okay, since it means that jaebeom doesn’t have to speak loudly to say what he wants to. “i live with my aunt. she’s from my – my dad’s side. it’s just her and me. my parents passed away when i was a kid.”

“oh,” jinyoung says mutely, recognizing the look in jaebeom’s dark eyes as something he doesn’t really want to talk about, but also something he doesn’t mind saying. it makes jinyoung feel a thrush of sudden warmth, knowing that jaebeom has told him something so personal. he looks around and adds hesitantly, “heavy talk for the train.”

“no other place to have them,” jaebeom says solemnly. he nods his chin toward the numerous conversations happening all around them. “do you think any of them are actually listening to what we’re saying? definitely not. if you were ever doing to drop a secret, this would be the time and place to do it.”

jinyoung mouth quirks up in a smile. “duly noted. i am sorry, though. i may not know how you feel entirely, but my own dad passed away a couple of years ago. i kind of get it.” he laughs then, a little bit self-depreciating. “it’s just been me, my mom, and my sisters…we moved out of south korea right after he passed. too many bad memories.”

“yeah,” jaebeom rests his head against the door one more time. “i understand completely. hey, our stop is the next one – let’s leave all that shit at the door, huh?”

so jinyoung follows after jaebeom as the other weaves his way through the crowd. there’s something inherently graceful about the movement, almost like he’s made to do it, as if it’s second nature to him by now. jinyoung is a step behind but jaebeom waits for him at the top of the stairs before they’re sent into the cold manhattan air. the brisk makes red pinch at their cheeks. jinyoung trails beside jaebeom as he starts to talk about all the small restaurants they pass by, rating the bubble tea shops that seem to pop up every few steps. jinyoung makes him pause so they can look at a huge bookstore, and then when he spots a couple of korean titles, he pressures jaebeom to go in by grabbing his shoulder and dragging them inside.

“wait, there’s this book that i was going to order online, but i think i saw it here,” jinyoung insists. his eyes roam across all the books that are placed out – a good portion of them on politics, literature, and the arts – before his eyes fall to a very familiar name. jinyoung pulls away to pick it up and immediately put it in a small cart that jaebeom’s brought for the both of them.

jaebeom stares at the book, an eyebrow raised. jinyoung mirrors his expression. “aren’t you going to read the blurb or anything?”

“i was going to buy it anyway,” jinyoung points to the very few copies left of the book. “if you don’t hurry, the things you want get snatched up like _that_.” he adds a flourished snap of his fingers for added effect.

“mo…moving of the sun?” jaebum squints at the korean words, while jinyoung picks up another book that looks generally interesting.

“movement of the sun,” he corrects gently. “it’s a collection of short stories by one of my favorite authors. she writes a lot about youth and maturity. one of my favorite books is by her.”

“youth and maturity?”

“yeah. there was this one story about a man who travels back in time to when he was a boy, but the only person who talks to him is his childhood best friend who he forgot about when he grew up. it focused a lot on how as children, we miss a lot of things that are clearer to us as adults.”

jaebeom smiles, flipping through the pages of the book jinyoung plans to buy. “it sounds like a good book.”

“i have a copy of it at home, if you want to read it.”

“oh, no i – i mean i would, i just. i can’t read korean.”

he should have expected it, seeing as how jaebeom has only ever texted jinyoung in english. even his korean words were written with english letters. but he knows that yugyeom knows how to write in korean, despite his horrible grammar. he had just assumed jaebeom was kind of the same, but this shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does. jaebeom looks a little shamed at that, his ears turning red, and jinyoung rushes to get that expression off his face. “no, hey, it’s okay. you should be flattered, i forgot you didn’t grow up in south korea like me for a minute.”

he looks around very quickly for the children’s section. jinyoung flips through some of the titles before finally coming to the end, where there are a couple of books that are meant for second language learners. he picks them out and places them in jaebeom’s hands, who blankly holds onto them.

“those can help you learn,” jinyoung begins, smoothing his hands over the laminated covers. he’s always loved the smell of books, the feel of paper beneath his hands. it’s addicting, and he allows himself another touch. “i mean, if you want to. i thought that you would.” what jinyoung is beginning to realize is that he and jaebeom are like in many ways, and jinyoung remembers how he had been when he first moved to america. there was no book he wasn’t determined to reread and conquer, no awkward vocabulary jinyoung wasn’t willing to memorize just to prove that he could.

“well, you got me pinned down pretty well,” jaebeom admits. “should we check them out?”

they never make it to the karaoke place. instead, jinyoung finds himself tucked away in a corner of some small starbucks, sitting against the hard wood bench and sharing a tiny table. they’ve spread the korean learner books that jaebeom bought. jinyoung points to certain letters and sounds them out, writing it down in korean before adding the english spelling of their names. jaebeom’s brow furrows as he’s completely focused, jinyoung notices. his capability to place all his attention on one thing is intense; he puts his whole body into it. his back hunches over, as if he can’t get close enough to the pages, and his fingers tap over the edges in some unknown rhythm only he hears in his head.

jinyoung has to pat the book a couple of times to bring him back to earth. despite that, the switch in jaebeom’s eyes that say that he’s having a great time learning from jinyoung in a dingy starbucks at midnight is what keeps jinyoung around.

/

“alright you assholes,” bambam starts when jinyoung and yugyeom are discussing some of their results over a quick lunch, “we’re going to have a club night. choose one club, any club, and we’re going to meet at yugyeom’s to get dressed up before we get fucked up. i’ll bring shots.”

“the italian bar has happy hour from seven until ten,” jinyoung offers. “it’s five bucks for a large glass of wine.”

“they give us free breadsticks, too,” yugyeom adds helpfully. “we could go there.”

bambam raises an eyebrow and looks between the both of them. he deflates all of a sudden, going, “are you two coming in on the weekend?”

sheepishly, yugyeom nods. “sorry, bamie. i don’t mind getting ready to go to the bar, though?”

while bambam grudgingly accepts that, jinyoung mumbles _i do_? underneath his breath. it’s not like he’ll do anything to stop bambam, though. they all need to get rid of stress somehow in this admittedly stressful period before the first round of submissions are due, and bambam does that by dancing and having fun for a night. even if there’s no dancing exactly, they can still have a good time together.

“oh, let me invite jaebeom-hyung too,” yugyeom whips out his phone and messages their group chat, which mostly consists of yugyeom texting jaebeom directly. when jinyoung had asked why yugyeom doesn’t just move it to a 1v1 chat, he just gets a _it’ll be awkward hyung! i don’t know! it just happened that way!_ jinyoung doesn’t know why he tries, sometimes.

“tell him to bring his friends,” bambam suggests. “he’ll just end up talking to jinyoung all night, so might as well get people who will actually pay attention to us.”

“wise thinking,” yugyeom nods sagely.

“what? no he won’t.” jinyoung aggressively saves another file on his computer.

“we can make jinyoung look so good he’ll blow jaebeom out of the park,” bambam suggests. jinyoung suddenly finds himself under bambam’s critical eye. “maybe a nice shirt that shows off the arms and shoulders, a little hair product… do you even wear the stuff i got you?”

“i _do_. just not every day, or all the time.” he won’t ever admit it, but bambam had got him into the habit of wearing _something_ in the morning, and at this point, putting on some bb cream at the very least is now integrated into his schedule. jinyoung rarely looks not put together, something that he had worked very hard to instill in himself in undergrad. he still remembers his days walking into class in sweatpants and sandals.

 _you were a different person,_ jinyoung consoles himself, even though most of his peers looked the same way – or worse. “and i’m not wearing anything too flashy, alright?”

“if i can get you into the nice button up i gave you as a gift last year, i’ll be satisfied,” bambam nods. “the white one with the wine glasses embroidered on the collar. oh, i have a pair of comfortable pants that would be really good for you, jinyoung! i know you don’t like to wear jeans because you can’t find ones that fit your ass – “

“ _bambam_ ,” jinyoung chokes.

“ – but this pair is styled to be pretty loose, promise. we’re going for the 90s look.” they both ignore the way yugyeom is cackling, his laughter pitching higher and higher. “c’mon, i’ve been wanting to dress someone up for ages. i upcycled the jeans myself!”

“alright,” jinyoung laughs, unable to say no to the way bambam is so excited about his own designs. they all have their own hobbies – jinyoung likes writing, yugyeom dances, bambam thrifts. “as long as you put yugyeom in something tight.”

yugyeom abruptly stops laughing. “what?”

friday night finds them huddled in yugyeom’s room, patiently (and in jinyoung’s case, a little impatiently) dealing with the fluttering that bambam does when he’s in the middle of his whirlwind of ideas. jinyoung is lucky that he managed to get it relatively light, as bambam allowed him to touch up his own face and keep his hair relatively free of product. the white button up with wine glasses embroidered at the collar is the fanciest thing he’s got on, since the pants bambam had offered him were (thankfully) too small.

yugyeom, however, bears the brunt of bambam’s manic gleam, dressed to the nines in silver jewelry and a thick silver brocade sewn at the shoulders of his blazer. jinyoung makes it a point not to mention how bambam has clothes in yugyeom’s size, and not jinyoung’s, but the smirk on his face gives him away easily.

“no more,” yugyeom whimpers as bambam squeezes his cheeks.

“shut your whining and be a man,” bambam says crossly, finally having shaped yugyeom’s eyebrows. “there, you look great.” and when he pulls away there’s something very fond in his expression. possibly because yugyeom lets him do this at all.

jinyoung raises a hand. “i would have liked to be tipsy around twenty minutes ago.”

“well that won’t be hard, you get drunk off of one glass of white,” bambam retorts smartly, leaving jinyoung to scowl at him. his alcohol tolerance may be low, but his tolerance of bullshit isn’t, if there’s anything to say about him dealing with his friends.

the Italian bar they pick out for their happy hour outing eye them up and down as they come in, but jinyoung is a little glad that bambam had sat them down and plucked them clean; he notices that most of the patrons are similarly dressed. they head to the bar without much argument, where jackson and mark await them at the corner. with them is a new face that jinyoung doesn’t recognize.

“hey,” jackson grins, waving. the three of them don’t match the surroundings at all, especially not jackson’s sweater and jeans combo, or mark’s sweatpants. but they look more comfortable here than jinyoung does.

“nice to see you,” bambam grins. he takes a look around. “where’s jaebeom?”

“he was going to come, but ended up having something to take care of last minute,” the unknown face pipes up. jinyoung feels a strange emotion bubble up in his stomach, but he ignores it.

“we brought youngjae instead, one of jaebeom’s close friends,” jackson pats the new addition – youngjae – on the shoulder. “i hope that’s okay?”

“the more the merrier!” bambam settles himself on a chair and already begins to order, since the others have started in on drinks already. jinyoung takes an empty seat next to mark, who smiles at him in hello, and yugyeom settles behind him.

“hyung,” yugyeom begins in quiet korean, “are you okay?”

jinyoung licks his suddenly dry mouth. “yeah, of course? why wouldn’t i be?”

but despite himself, he can’t help but note the strange abyss that’s opened up within him with jaebeom’s absence.

jinyoung doesn’t know why it throws him off. he and jaebeom have been friends for two months at that point – good friends, close friends, he’d say – and they talked every day. he almost wishes he was exaggerating, but when scrolling back to show yugyeom a picture jaebeom had sent him jinyoung is almost knocked over the head with how _much_ he and jaebeom actually text each other.

it’s just. he felt so comfortable, with jaebeom. it was _easy_ to talk to him, to pick up random conversations about niche interests, go on a tangent and have someone else follow where he led. and jinyoung hasn’t felt this disoriented since he had first come to america, letting his father speak for his foreign family, wondering when he would stop hearing noises and start hearing words all around him.

it’s also the reason why, unnerved, jinyoung doesn’t answer jaebeom’s recent slew of text messages. he sent a picture of a cat in a tree that he had found. jaebeom is obsessed with cats; he always manages to find the ones stuck in trees, too, like he’s a cat whisperer that hears their cries.

jinyoung stares at his phone screen. he doesn’t know why he’s so hesitant, suddenly, to answer back.

**Author's Note:**

>  **housekeeping** :
> 
> \- western blots are a scientific technique that allows you to detect the presence of a protein by using separation of charges.  
> \- cell culture refers to the general process of growing cells (could be from animals, humans, immortalized, etc) outside of their natural environment in a controlled system to be studied. 
> 
> twt: @xiajin_twt  
> cc: xiajin


End file.
